Starship Winter (David Conway 03) by Eric Brown

door.
    I came awake slowly, rolled out of bed and pulled on some clothes.
    Maddie and Matt stood side by side in the passageway when I opened the door. They wore the blank, anaesthetised expressions of people in shock.
    “What?” I said
    “It’s Dortmund,” Maddie said at last.
    “Dortmund?”
    She nodded. “He’s dead.”

— SIX —
     
     
     
    Hannah joined me and we made our way downstairs. Hawk and Kee were already there, standing beside the open door to the lounge. They were holding hands and staring silently into the room. The Ambassador, Heanor, was beside them, peering into the lounge.
    I said, “What happened? Who found him?”
    “I did, Mr Conway,” Heanor said. “I rose early, as is my custom. The door was open. When I looked in, I saw…”
    I looked into the room.
    Dortmund was slumped forward in his armchair, the front of his white suit stained black.
    I led the way into the room. Hannah reached out to me. “Be careful. Don’t touch anything. Has anyone called the police?”
    Maddie nodded. “As soon as Heanor woke us,” she said. “I contacted your people in Mackinley. They said they’d have a team up here in ten minutes.”
    I stopped beside Dortmund’s chair, in exactly the same position as when I’d stood over him the night before.
    From his chest projected the hleth barb. I looked up, staring around at the shocked expressions of my friends. “Who the hell could have done this?” I said.
    Hawk held my gaze. “After what the bastard said last night,” he said, “any one of us.”
    I found myself laughing, more with macabre fear than humour. “I must admit I felt like—”
    Hannah said, “We all did, at some point. But I don’t think any of you would…” She stopped, then said, “Where’s Fhen?”
    I looked at the Ambassador, as if he might know the whereabouts of his compatriot.
    “He was not in his room when I went to find him,” Heanor said. He carved a gesture. “But you cannot be imputing…?” he said, staring at Hannah. “The taking of life, even alien life, is proscribed on my homeworld.”
    “But we’re not on your homeworld,” I pointed out.
    The alien blinked with what looked like very human surprise, but for all I knew might have indicated intense hatred. He said, “Forgive my grasp of your language, Mr Conway. What I intended to mean was that on my world, murder is proscribed. We Elan do not kill anything.”
    I said, “Then it’s either one of us, or someone who entered the house during the night.”
    The Elan said, “The latter is impossible, Mr Conway. All the exterior doors are locked, and the windows likewise.”
    I recalled seeing Hawk on the patio: perhaps he’d left the door open when he returned inside, unwittingly allowing the killer into the building?
    He caught my glance and said, “I stepped out for a breath of air around four this morning. I was out there perhaps ten minutes, the door open behind me. I didn’t see anyone enter, and I locked the door when I came back inside.”
    Maddie said, wide-eyed and incredulous, “So if it wasn’t Fhen, then…”
    “Then it must have been one of us,” Hannah finished.
    I experienced a sickening sensation in my chest, like nausea.
    The ensuing silence was interrupted by the diminuendo of a jet engine as a police flier came down on the front lawn. I guessed I was not alone in feeling relief, and not a little apprehension, at their arrival.
    Hannah let the team into the house and explained the situation. We were ushered from the lounge and kept in an adjacent room, under the watchful eye of a uniformed officer, while the scene-of-crime team moved into the lounge and set up their apparatus.
    “So what happens now?” I asked.
    Hannah said, “We’ll be questioned individually. I suspect we’ll be released then, with binding conditions, and asked to report to the Mackinley police HQ until the investigation is closed.”
    I looked around at my friends, unable to believe that any one of them